


it was a dark and stormy night

by tinuviel_tinuviel



Category: Tuck Everlasting - Miller/Tysen/Shear & Federle
Genre: Canon Era, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinuviel_tinuviel/pseuds/tinuviel_tinuviel
Summary: it's just fluff babyhugo's at college, stressing about finals, and winnie comes to hang out and cheer him up.written for the 2019 tuck secret santa!
Relationships: Winnie Foster & Hugo Jackson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	it was a dark and stormy night

“Winnie?!” It took Hugo several molasses-slow seconds to make sense of the sight: Winnie Foster. Clinging to his windowsill. Two stories off the ground. In the driving rain. Outside his university dorm room, fifty miles from Tree Gap. She was mouthing something… _Let me in_. “Oh!” He yanked the window open and she tumbled in, wet hair lashed by a gust of wind, and fell into a dripping heap on his floor. He slammed the window shut. “Why– how– what are you doing here?” She rolled onto her back and grinned up at him.

“You sounded sad in your last letter. Constable Joe and I were worried that you were overworking yourself again.”

“It’s almost midterms, and–” he processed her whole sentence. “You came all this way because I sounded sad?”

She rose, leaving a Winnie-shaped puddle. “Sure did. Two miles by carriage, forty-five miles by train, three miles walking, and an awkward scramble up a couple stories because your unfriendly doorman wouldn’t let me into the boys’ dormitory.” She sounded especially indignant about the last bit. “Even though I _told_ him I was an old friend.”

“Land’s sakes, Winnie!” 

“What were you working on?” she asked, shrugging a bag from her shoulders and kicking off her muddy boots.

“Studying for exams.”

“And what have you been doing all week?”

“Studying for exams,” he said sheepishly.

She snorted. “Boring! No wonder you were sad. Put your books away and sit over here. I brought some presents from home that’ll have you feeling better in no time.” She plopped onto his bed and patted the blanket beside her. With her wet hair plastered against her head she looked like a cat caught under a water-spout, and a perfunctory smoothing of her soaked skirts had done nothing to remove the long streaks of mud– but she looked so proud of herself, sitting on his bed with her bag of gifts. There was something about her that just said _home_ , like she’d brought the rustling trees and hand-painted houses and familiar chatter with her. And there was something about her that said _adventure_ , and _determination_ , and _everything will be fine_. The anxiety that shrouded him as he pored over thick forensics texts had slipped from the room, like a shadow chased by a flame. He cast one more glance at his paper-strewn desk and then dropped onto the bed beside her, his heart already growing light.

“Alright, let’s see what you brought!”

She unloaded muffins from the baker, a new edition of the deputy handbook from Constable Joe with flowers pressed between the pages by a school friend, letters from his parents, a rag doll from his niece, a tie from his brother, and some neat mushrooms she had found on the walk from the train station. Each item reminded her of a half-dozen stories and tidbits of gossip, and by the time the bag was empty his cheeks almost hurt from smiling.

“Better than studying?” she asked, folding her knapsack.

“Much better.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at @davey-in-a-minivan or @mae-tuck-drives-a-minivan!


End file.
